


hope is our four letter word

by uknightedfederationofplanets (orphan_account)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cutting, Established Sterek - Freeform, M/M, Self Harm, That's it, feelings of worthlessness, he pushes him later on, kind of abusive derek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-30 04:56:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/uknightedfederationofplanets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles feels entirely worthless after the death of his mother, and an old habit comes back after a chain of events.<br/>Established Sterek.<br/>Pretty graphic but has tons of fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you decided to ignore the warnings, this has some pretty detailed descriptions of cutting that are written by someone who used to suffer from that. I know what happens, I know how it feels, and I'm better now, but I did draw from that while writing.
> 
> If you ever need to talk, I'm always here, and my tumblr is u-knightedfederationofplanets. Please, come talk to me if you ever feel how Stiles does in this fic. Sadness is only nice in terms of plot development.
> 
> I'll be posting every Tuesday, as of right now, I have up to chapter 10 written.

When stiles' mom had died, he had spent a lot of time being sad. 'Sad' never felt like a good word to describe his feelings, but it was all he could come up with when he was young and it was the best label he had to try to make his dad understand. There was overwhelming grief that pushed on his chest and made him gasp for what seemed to be completely unattainable air. It never seemed to classify as just sad. But when he sat in his room, alone, on the edge of the bed and he didn't think about anything at all because if he thought about things it would bring that crushing feeling to his chest and sometimes he couldn't even cry because he was too busy gasping for breath.

He was young when it started. He was young and sitting on his bed and trying not to think and failing for some reason, this time. He couldn't breathe and he knew it was his fault, he had seen her die and hasn't done anything to stop her from going. His head bashed it'll to the wall, leaving a small dent in the Sheetrock. It wasn't intentional, he had always told himself, he had lost his balance, he would insist. But it had felt told and it had torn him from his panic and returned his breath.

Little accidents continued for a few years - more than once his dad brought him to the hospital and he eventually got around to accepting the fact that his son was just a little clumsy. Each time he went to the hospital more staff knew him by name and they would say hello to him and ruffle his hair and  him they wished he would grow out of his clumsiness.

At his eleventh birthday party he and Scott had decided to climb a tree in his backyard. An hour later, he and his dad and Scott were on their way to the hospital because stiles had lost his balance and tumbled out of the tree.

The lady at the front desk ruffled his hair and gave him an extra blue lollipop because it was his birthday and she knew they were his favorite. He handed the extra one to scott, so the desk lady smiled small and handed them both another lollipop because it was stiles' birthday and he still thought of Scott before himself.

Another couple of hours later, he was in a white room getting his arm and his leg wrapped in warm wet cast paper because he had fractured both of them pretty badly.

He had a nice, pretty nurse who reminded him of his mother and she didn't squeeze his broken arm too much like the other nurses did and she gave him another blue lollipop because it was his birthday and they were his favorite and he didn't cry or complain when she was putting the casts on him.

He felt safe even though his dad and Scott weren't there so he looked up at the pretty nurse that looked like his mom and told her that falling out of the tree and most of the other times he had gotten hurt weren't accidents.

She took him to a little blue room with an old man who looked patient but also as if he lived with sixteen cats perched on a wooden chair. His dad and Scott weren't allowed to go in he little blue room with stiles and the old man asked him questions that made him feel bad about himself until he thought he would throw up and he was having trouble breathing and he hugged himself and grabbed at the arms of his chair and rocked back and forth and it didn't even matter that it was the most uncomfortable chair he had ever sat in, including the ones at church when he had gone one year with his grandparents.

The old man talked to stiles in a small voice until he calmed down and he realized when he heard his dad shouting outside the room that he wanted  to know what was wrong with his kid that it had been another hour and a half. The nurse let his dad into the little room but wouldn't let Scott in. The old man told stiles' dad that he was having 'panic attacks' and was hurting himself because of them when they happened. His words mad stiles few bad again, but he pulls he gave stiles' dad for when he couldn't breathe made him feel better and eventually it happened less and less but he still did hurt himself when it happened, even though he promised the old man he wouldn't do it again. Unfortunately, he had to hide most of his injuries after that from his dad, but he tried his best to make sure he didn't hurt himself too bad, even though he wanted to.


	2. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: SELF HARM. Stiles goes back on a very bad habit. 
> 
> Cutting is bad. Please don't cut. Come talk to me if you ever feel like Stiles in this fic. Tumblr is the best for getting a hold of me. alexwarbler.tumblr.com. Please don't cut. I love you. Okay? This is a fanfiction. Please don't be triggered by this. Don't read this if you cut and feel like cutting. Go do happy things. Don't be sad, friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: SELF HARM  
> This is a chapter has a depiction of self-harm. Don't read it if that stuff triggers you!! Okay? I love you.
> 
> Cutting is bad. Please don't cut. Come talk to me if you ever feel like Stiles in this fic. Tumblr is the best for getting a hold of me. alexwarbler.tumblr.com. Please don't cut. I love you. Okay? This is a fanfiction. Please don't be triggered by this. Don't read this if you cut and feel like cutting. Go do happy things. Don't be sad, friend.

Stiles did get better. But it never really left him entirely. When he thought about his mom or that lost lacrosse game or everything else that was entirely his fault, he usually thought about hurting himself. But he did have restraint. His father had recently redone his room - put in new drywall, painted it, put a new carpet that didn’t smell like wall dust in - and he had every intention of not creating a hole in the wall with his head.

  
But when he walked home alone after a small fight with Scott, he had never wanted to concuss himself more. His only friend now hated him, they had lost a lacrosse game to the worst team in the league, and it was his fault. He was on defense and he let the other team have a clear, straight, easy shot at the net. And the fight with Scott was his fault too. Absolutely everything was his fault. It always was.

So when he walked in to a note saying his dad has a call and he would be spending the night alone, he felt even worse about the situation. He wouldn't even have his dad to distract him tonight. His dad didn’t always listen, and he didn’t always pay attention, and when he did, he didn’t always give the best advice, but at least he was always there. Stiles went to his bedroom, already feeling that familiar ache in his chest, breathing hard through his parted lips. He sat on the edge of the bed, feet and hands unable to stay still. He got up and half ran, half staggered to the kitchen. He scanned the room for his medication. Why wasn't it sitting on the microwave? It was always on top of the microwave. He looked around the rest of the kitchen, but before he could locate his medication, his eyes fell on the knife set sitting on the counter next to the stove. No one ever used them, his dad wouldn't notice if one was dull or even missing, probably.

He pulled each of the knives out of their stand one at a time to see which one would work best. He grabbed one that was a bit smaller than most of the others, and completely flat on the sharp side. He figured its intended purpose was to chop the heads off of small fish.

He took it to his room, tossed it onto his bed, turned back to the door and closed and locked it. He sat down on his bed cross legged and held the knife to his arm.

That’s not smart. That wouldn't be smart. It was almost summer and if he did that, he would have to wear long sleeves to hide the cuts from his father and Scott and his crabby ass boyfriend.

He set the knife back down, looking himself over. He stared at his hip for a whole. That would work well. No one would be able to see it unless they entirely strip searched him, and he would just have to avoid sex for a while which wouldn't be hard considering Derek held his hand only once every couple of weeks, and that was if they were able to be alone, like, at all. Ever.

He tugged off his jeans to get to his skin and made a couple of small slices near his hipbone. Oh, god, it was morbid, but the sight of his blood trickling down to his leg was better. It made him better. It was warmer on the outside than it was in his veins. He could feel himself calming down after a few more, admittedly deep, slices to his leg. It was sticky, but not in a bad, spilled-soda-on-his-lap-after-Derek-shoved-him kind of sticky. He pushed the knife into his leg over and over and over, flinching less and less and less and calming down more and more and more. Once nearly all of his leg was either bleeding or sliced or raw from scraping, he was calm and light headed and tired so he walked to the kitchen in his underwear, washed off the knife and put it back in the holder, texted his dad asking where his medication was, and plopped down in his bed with the covers warm on top of him and went to sleep.


	3. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> actual plot and characters yay hi sorry this is late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i posted this really late and i'm sorry about that i almost forgot  
> don't cut don't act like stiles talk to me instead of cutting okay?? okay.  
> i'm sorry these chapters are so short

Stiles woke up to his phone buzzing with texts - one from his dad and nine from Scott. 

"I noticed you were almost out. Took em to get refilled. Sorry kid. You okay?"  
"Stiles, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have over reacted."  
"Really, I'm sorry."  
"Stiles?"  
"It's only 8:30 you never go to bed before 10."  
"Are you really that mad at me?"  
"What do I need to do to make it up?"  
"Okay, I don't know if your phone died or something, just talk to me tomorrow?"  
"I am really sorry."  
"Can we forget this happened?"

He texted his dad back quick, just a, "yeah, fine." And then tried to sit up in be. He sucked in air in pain because he had made a bad decision of sleeping in a pool of his own blood. A lot of the sheet was very much attached to his leg, and he was forced to try to very carefully maneuver and try to not rip at the already-forming scabs. That didn’t work nearly as well as he had hoped, so he ended up with blood trickling down his leg again. 

He showered and dried himself off. He got down to his leg and put an ungodly amount of pressure on it, willing it to just stop bleeding after the water had loosened the cuts again and it stung like hell. Not much of Stiles really regretted it, but he kind of just wished he had Scott or Derek's super magic werewolf healing abilities because maybe it would stop bleeding and he could get to school and apologize to Scott for whatever their argument was about. 

Scott was waiting for Stiles in the foyer of school when Stiles arrived.

“Hey, I was just asleep or something.” It wasn’t a total lie. A partial truth was better than every alternative. He just couldn’t lie to his best friend and even if he did, Scott’s freaky werewolf senses would pick it up and bust him or something. They probably already were. Anyway, if he did tell him the total truth, there was no way of knowing what could happen.

“Wow, I can’t believe my best friend is such a psycho,” And then storm away,  
“Why the hell would you do that?” And then storm away,  
“Let me take you to the school shrink,” And then dragging Stiles to some too-happy lady fresh out of grad school who wanted to talk to him about his feelings.

There were a few other scenarios that Stiles envisioned while Scott was obviously trying to think of what he could possibly say.  
“So, we’re cool then?” Scott held his arms out, palms up, probably indicating his concern or confusion or some other judgemental emotion.

Stiles nodded. He bit his bottom lip a little, chewing on it.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” He paused. “I don’t even remember what it was about.”  
He and Scott both did that nodding thing where they were both saying sorry and trying their damn hardest to forget about what they had fought about. Stiles already had.

He put his arm around Scott and half-hugged him with one arm, then started walking to class. He stopped first at Scott’s locker, then his own, and then outside of class.  
“So you’re not mad at me for saying that stuff about Derek?”  
“What did you say about Derek?”


End file.
